All Books
- Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction
Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction
$20.00From one of our most distinguished historians comes a groundbreaking new examination of the myths and realities of the period after the Civil War.
Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on black experiences and roles during the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in shaping Reconstruction, and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. He compellingly refutes long-standing misconceptions of Reconstruction, and shows how the failures of the time sowed the seeds of the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s. Richly illustrated and movingly written, this is an illuminating and essential addition to our understanding of this momentous era.
- The Wake of the Wind: A Novel
The Wake of the Wind: A Novel
$15.95A dramatic and thought-provoking novel of one family's triumph in the face of the hardships and challenges of the post-Civil War South, from the award-winning author of Family
"Rendered with compassion and beautiful simplicity."--The Washington Post Book World
"[A] provocative and at times painful family portrait . . . It should be required reading."--Detroit Free Press
Opening in Texas during the waning years of the Civil War, The Wake of the Wind tells the epic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor. When news of Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and their family set out in search of hope and a piece of land they can work and call their own. Miraculously, they manage not only to survive but to succeed--their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others. But the South during Reconstruction is not a place that takes kindly to the achievements of former slaves, and as lynchings and injustices become a plague across the region, time and time again they must make the anguished decision to leave their land in search of a safer place.
Land, however, is the least of their worldly possessions. Lifee and Mor are the descendants of a long and vital line. Having used their intelligence, strength, and ingenuity to make their place in the new post-Civil War world, they in turn pass those talents along to their children--the next generation to surge forward, accomplishing more than their parents could ever dream.
At once tragic and triumphant, The Wake of the Wind is a penetrating look at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home and a future for themselves and their families.
- Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Solutions for Climate Displacement
Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Solutions for Climate Displacement
$20.95Leading Binnizá and Maya Ch'orti' scientist Jessica Hernandez, PhD, weaves together Indigenous knowledge, environmental science, and personal family stories in her highly anticipated follow-up to the LA Times best-seller Fresh Banana Leaves.
Not every environmental problem is a result of climate change, but every environmental and climate change problem is a result of colonialism.
Dr. Jessica Hernandez offers readers an Indigenous, Global-South lens on the climate crisis, delivering a compelling and urgent exploration of its causes—and its costs. She shares how the impacts of colonial climate catastrophe—from warming oceans to forced displacement of settler ontologies—can only be addressed at the root if we reorient toward Indigenous science and follow the lead of Indigenous peoples and communities.
Growing Papaya Trees explores:
* Energy as a sociopolitical issue
* The interconnectedness of natural disasters, sociopolitical turmoil, and forced migration
* Our oceans, our forests, and our Indigenous futures
* Moving Indigenous science from mere acknowledgement into real action
* How to nourish Indigenous roots when displaced beyond bordersDr. Hernandez asks: what does it mean to be Indigenous when we’re separated from our lands? How do we nurture future generations knowing they, too, will have to live away from their ancestral places? She illuminates that cultures are not lost, even amid genocide, turmoil, war, and climate displacement—and shows us how to be better kin to each other against the ecological violence, colonial oppression, and distorted status quo of the Global North.
- Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America
Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America
Sold outAN NPR BEST BOOK OF 2024 • An award-winning journalist's exploration of how race, identity and political trauma have influenced the rise in far-right sentiment among Latinos, and how this group can shape American politics
“A deeply reported, surprisingly personal exploration of a phenomenon that is little understood in our politics: the affiliation of Latino voters with causes and candidates that would seem, at first glance, unwelcoming to them."—Rachel Maddow
Democrats have historically assumed they can rely on the Latino vote, but recent elections have called that loyalty into question. In fact, despite his vociferous anti-immigrant rhetoric and disastrous border policies, Trump won a higher percentage of the Latino vote in 2020 than he did in 2016. Now, journalist Paola Ramos pulls back the curtain on these voters, traveling around the country to uncover what motivates them to vote for and support issues that seem so at odds with their self-interest.
From coast to coast, cities to rural towns, Defectors introduces readers to underdog GOP candidates, January 6th insurrectionists, Evangelical pastors and culture war crusaders, aiming to identify the influences at the heart of this rightward shift. Through their stories, Ramos shows how tribalism, traditionalism, and political trauma within the Latino community has been weaponized to radicalize and convert voters who, like many of their white counterparts, are fearful of losing their place in American society. Cross-cultural and assiduously reported, Defectors highlights how one of America's most powerful and misunderstood electorates may come to define the future of American politics.
- Problem Child
Problem Child
Sold outFrom Terrell Carter, a standout on Tyler Perry’s new Netflix drama Beauty in Black as Varney, Problem Child is a heart-wrenching story that will take you on an emotional rollercoaster ride that makes the Twilight Zone look like Disneyland.
Problem Child is the unbelievably true story of Terrell Carter, an American musician and actor who grew up in Buffalo, New York, in a dysfunctional family, each member crazier than the next. And the Problem Child is the only one in the story who may, or may not, actually have a problem. An emotional journey of trials and revelations, with a huge secret at its core, this story may force you to laugh—just to keep from crying.
“Terrell, we’re still feeling the goosebumps.”—Quincy Jones
“My beautiful baby boy, even more beautiful on the inside, and he sings even better than that. Now Ms. Patti is giving him his wings to fly among the greats.”—Patti LaBelle
- Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Stahlecker Selections)
Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Stahlecker Selections)
$16.95John Murillo’s second book is a reflective look at the legacy of institutional, accepted violence against Blacks and Latinos and the personal and societal wreckage wrought by long histories of subjugation. A sparrow trapped in a car window evokes a mother battered by a father’s fists; a workout at an iron gym recalls a long-ago mentor who pushed the speaker “to become something unbreakable.” The presence of these and poetic forbears—Gil Scott-Heron, Yusef Komunyakaa—provide a context for strength in the face of danger and anger. At the heart of the book is a sonnet crown triggered by the shooting deaths of three Brooklyn men that becomes an extended meditation on the history of racial injustice and the notion of payback as a form of justice.
- Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics (Princeton Studies in Political Behavior)
Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics (Princeton Studies in Political Behavior)
$37.26The lasting effects of slavery on contemporary political attitudes in the American South
Despite dramatic social transformations in the United States during the last 150 years, the South has remained staunchly conservative. Southerners are more likely to support Republican candidates, gun rights, and the death penalty, and southern whites harbor higher levels of racial resentment than whites in other parts of the country. Why haven't these sentiments evolved? Deep Roots shows that the entrenched views of white southerners are a direct consequence of the region's slaveholding history. Today, southern whites who live in areas once reliant on slavery―compared to areas that were not―are more racially hostile and less amenable to policies that could promote black progress. A groundbreaking look at the ways institutions of the past continue to sway attitudes of the present, Deep Roots demonstrates how social beliefs persist long after the formal policies that created those beliefs have been eradicated.
- Bluest Nude: Poems
Bluest Nude: Poems
$18.00Finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work
Ama Codjoe’s highly anticipated debut collection brings generous light to the inner dialogues of women as they bathe, create art, make and lose love. Each poem rises with the urgency of a fully awakened sensual life.
Codjoe’s poems explore how the archetype of the artist complicates the typical expectations of women: be gazed upon, be silent, be selfless, reproduce. Dialoguing with and through art, Bluest Nude considers alternative ways of holding and constructing the self. From Lorna Simpson to Gwendolyn Brooks to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, contemporary and ancestral artists populate Bluest Nude in a choreography of Codjoe’s making. Precise and halting, this finely wrought, riveting collection is marked by an acute rendering of highly charged emotional spaces.
Purposefully shifting between the role of artist and subject, seer and seen, Codjoe’s poems ask what the act of looking does to a person—public looking, private looking, and that most intimate, singular spectacle of looking at one’s self. What does it mean to see while being seen? In poems that illuminate the tension between the possibilities of openness and and its impediments, Bluest Nude offers vulnerability as a medium to be immersed in and, ultimately, shared as a kind of power: “There are as many walls inside me / as there are bones at the bottom of the sea,” Codjoe writes in the masterful titular poem. “I want to be seen clearly or not at all.”
“The end of the world has ended,” Codjoe’s speaker announces, “and desire is still / all I crave.”
Startling and seductive in equal measure, this formally ambitious collection represents a powerful, luminous beginning.
- a little bump in the earth
a little bump in the earth
$22.00Through invention and remembrance, a little bump in the earth creates a black town on a hill—its land, its losses, its living and ancestral dead.
Tyree Daye's a little bump in the earth is an act of invention and remembrance. Through sprawling poems, the town of Youngsville, North Carolina, where Daye's family has lived for the last 200 years, is reclaimed as “Ritual House." Here, “every cousin aunt uncle ghost" is welcome. Daye invokes real and imagined people, the ancestral dead, land, snakes, and chickens, to create a black town on a hill. Including dreams, letters, revised rental agreements, and “a little museum in the here & after," where collaged images appear besides documents from Daye's ancestors—census records, marriage licenses, and WWII Draft Registration cards—the collection asks if the past can be a portal to the future, the present a catalyst for the past. a little bump in the earth explores what it means to love someone, someplace, even as it changes, dies right in front of your eyes. Poem by poem, Daye is honoring the people of Youngsville and “bringing back the dead."
- Jazz Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series)
Jazz Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series)
Sold outA vital and surprising hardcover collection of poems about, and inspired by, jazz music. AN EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY POCKET POET. Selected and Edited by Kevin Young.
Ever since its first flowering, jazz has had a powerful influence on American poetry; this scintillating anthology offers a treasury of poems that are as varied and as vital as the music that inspired them.
From the Harlem Renaissance to the beat movement, from the poets of the New York school to the contemporary poetry scene, the jazz aesthetic has been a compelling literary force—one that Jazz Poems makes palpable. We hear it in the poems of Langston Hughes, E. E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, and Gwendolyn Brooks, and in those of Yusef Komunyakaa, Charles Simic, Rita Dove, Ntozake Shange, Mark Doty, William Matthews, and C. D. Wright. Here are poems that pay tribute to jazz’s great voices, and poems that throb with the vivid rhythm and energy of the jazz tradition, ranging in tone from mournful elegy to sheer celebration.
Includes:
• “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret” by Langston Hughes
• “God Bless the Child” by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog, Jr.
• “Jazz Fantasia” by Carl Sandburg
• “Ol’ Bunk’s Band” by William Carlos Williams
• “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks
• “Chasing the Bird” by Robert Creeley
• “Victrola” by Robert Pinsky
• “Pres Spoke in a Language” by Amiri Baraka
• “The Day Lady Died” by Frank O’Hara
• “Art Pepper” by Edward Hirsch
• “Snow” by Billy Collins
Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. - Nat Turner: A Graphic Novel
Nat Turner: A Graphic Novel
$19.99Nat Turner is the fascinating and action-packed true story of an American freedom fighter, written and illustrated by Kyle Baker as a graphic novel—collecting all four issues of his critically acclaimed miniseries.
“A hauntingly beautiful historical spotlight. A-” —Entertainment Weekly
The story of Nat Turner and his slave rebellion—which began on August 21, 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia—is known among school children and adults. To some he is a hero, a symbol of Black resistance and a precursor to the civil rights movement; to others he is a monster—a murderer whose name is never uttered.
In Nat Turner, acclaimed author and illustrator Kyle Baker depicts the evils of slavery in this moving and historically accurate story of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion. Told nearly wordlessly, every image resonates with the reader as the brutal story unfolds.
“Baker’s storytelling is magnificent.” —Variety
- Beautiful Black Boy
Beautiful Black Boy
$19.99This powerful picture book is a gorgeous lyrical ode teaching and instilling self-love, the power of one's Blackness, and confidence into young males of color.
A simple yet poetic composition celebrating and uplifting positive attributes of Black boys such as strength, bravery, and joy.
- Goldenborn
Goldenborn
$19.99A girl with a mission. A god with a deal. A story that could change everything.
When 17-year-old Akoma Addo stumbles into a world of ancient gods and modern magic, she’ll have to choose between saving her father… or staying true to everything she’s ever believed.
Akoma Addo has one rule: don’t get too close to the supernatural.
Ever since a blazing orb of light left her father in a coma, she’s buried herself in her secret job investigating magical crimes in San Francisco’s AfricaTown -- just enough to keep her grief at bay. But when a body turns up in a pool of molten gold and ash, Akoma’s pulled into something much bigger -- and far more dangerous. At the center of it all is Anansi, the trickster god of stories, who makes her an impossible offer: help him catch a killer and awaken the ancestral magic buried deep in her blood... and in return, he’ll give her a chance to bring her father back. To take the deal, Akoma will have to lie to everyone she loves and embrace the very power she’s spent years trying to deny. And as her connection grows with Xander, the new guy in town with secrets of his own, Akoma must decide who she can trust -- especially when she’s no longer sure she can even trust herself. Rooted in Ghanaian mythology and packed with mystery, danger, and slow-burning romance, Goldenborn is a gripping fantasy about legacy, lies, and what it really means to rewrite your story.
- Here Lies a Ghost
Here Lies a Ghost
$19.99India Hill Brown meets Sharon Draper in a spooky, poignant, tour-de-force from Shakirah Bourne -- an ode to Black Boy friendships, the richness of Caribbean history, and the power that comes from reclaiming your past.
Jermaine is NOT destined to be popular at his new elite school. First, he's the poorest kid in class -- no phone, no cool sneakers, no chance. Second, he loves science and can't keep himself from gushing about geology. But after being bullied at his old school, he's desperate for the status and protection that comes from joining the "Turbo Jets"... even if that means abandoning Brody, a fellow outsider who truly wants to be Jermaine's friend.
As part of a hazing ritual, the Turbo Jets dare Jermaine to break into the notorious "haunted Chase Vault" -- the crypt that once housed one of the cruelest enslavers in Barbados and his family. Then they lock him inside as a "joke."
Luckily, Jermaine makes it out unscathed. There's just one problem.
Someone else left the crypt with him.
Someone desperate to learn how she died... and get her revenge.
Jermaine is relieved someone else can see the ghost: his ex-best friend Brody. But freeing her won't be easy. It means ditching the Turbo Jets, teaming up with Brody, and unearthing ugly secrets from the island's colonial past. Will Jermaine really risk everything to help the suffering spirit find peace?
- Opting Out
Opting Out
Sold outFrom the award-winning author/illustrator of GENDER QUEER and a bright new talent, the story of a kid named Saachi, who is navigating friendship woes, sister issues, a new crush, and a resistance to blue-and-pink binaries.
Bodies are the worst. I wish I didn't have a body.
Saachi is a storyteller. At school, she's surrounded by kids she's known forever -- including her best friend, Lyla, who shares Saachi's love of fantasy novels and creating new worlds.
But as seventh grade starts, kids are changing. Suddenly, it matters who you like and if you can find a boyfriend or girlfriend. Even Lyla seems more interested in hanging out with her new boyfriend than in writing and drawing with Saachi anymore. Saachi's not interested in any of that boy/girl stuff. Why can't things just stay the way they were?
Saachi also doesn't love all the ways her body is changing. What if she doesn't feel like a girl -- or like a boy, either? In a world where there is so much either/or, Saachi is going to need to find her own options . . . and create her own story.
- Rise, Girl, Rise: Our Sister-Friend Journey. Together for All.
Rise, Girl, Rise: Our Sister-Friend Journey. Together for All.
$19.99In this bold anthem, feminist organizer and bestselling author Gloria Steinem and Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee share their parallel journeys as activists.
We, sister-friends, working our way toward equality's front door. We, taking separate journeys, but walking in the same direction.
We ―― for peace. We ―― for love. We ―― for bravery.
Gloria Steinem and Leymah Gbowee's dual paths have inspired a friendship empowered by the principles of equality, progress, and hope for a new generation. Here, two friends come together to tell one uplifting story of girls and women strengthening one another and changing the world.
- PRE-ORDER: Ghost in the Night
PRE-ORDER: Ghost in the Night
$18.99From mega-bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson comes this highly anticipated follow-up to her Edgar Award-nominated, instant middle-grade bestseller Blood in the Water.
Ghost in the Night is another spine-tingling, can't-put-it-down murder mystery, this time set in America's Most Haunted City.
Savannah, Georgia, with its mossy trees and ornate old homes, is a place rich in history...and ghosts. Ghosts are what pique Harmony Roundtree's interest. Still reeling from her losses back home, Harmony wants to believe in ghost stories...but isn't sure what's real. When she goes on one of the many ghost tours around town, she takes a photo of what might be a ghost. Or is it a hoax?
With two new friends, Harmony sets out to investigate... and stumbles upon clues leading to an unsolved murder. The deeper she digs, the more Harmony realizes that what she saw on the ghost tour might be connected to a shocking crime. But making connections can be dangerous--even more dangerous than ghosts.
New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson delivers another action-packed mystery full of surprises and secrets that will give readers goosebumps.
- PRE-ORDER: Level Up
PRE-ORDER: Level Up
$18.99From the author of Hide and Seeker comes a new thriller where an iconic childhood game turns creepy.
Keenan is used to running. He loves it. He is good at it. He is a track star, after all. Now he and his mother are escaping his father, trying to start a new life in Tennessee.
But he has never been on the run like this before. This new town has monsters of its own. The students in his school seem to be under some sort of trance, and Keenan is the only one who isn’t affected. Which means he is the only one who can do anything about it.
It’s time for Keenan to stop running and face his fears.
He cannot let the monsters win.
- I Am the Dream Come True
I Am the Dream Come True
$19.99From family roots to big dreams, global change makers Marley Dias, Dr. Janice Johnson Dias and Scott Dias show how change starts with one brave step...
In this bold affirmation of empowerment, strength, and purpose, activists and global change makers Marley Dias, Dr. Janice Johnson Dias, and Scott Dias introduce their family’s legacy of blazing new trails, rising to meet opportunities, and choosing to seek new lands of promise. When Marley launched the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign, she showed the world that young people can make a difference through action. Now, in this deeply personal narrative, Marley and her parents share the ancestral histories that have forged new opportunities for future generations by reaching for their dreams.
- PRE-ORDER: Girl from the Ashes
PRE-ORDER: Girl from the Ashes
$18.99Two friends must dig into their town's forgotten past and uncover the forgotten truth -- before their whole town goes up in flames. For fans of Small Spaces and Mary Downing Hahn, a spooky ghost story from the award-winning author of The Forgotten Girl and The Girl in the Lake.
Burn it all down.
Gianna and Carter John are best friends, but they couldn’t be more different. Gianna is small for her age, gets straight A’s, and is the teacher’s favorite. Meanwhile, Carter John gets in trouble no matter what he does, just because he’s tall and his voice is loud.
Then one day while working on a class project in the town library, Carter John gets in trouble yet again and reaches his breaking point. As his anger builds, a stack of books flies off the shelf, hitting the librarian.
Now everywhere he goes, strange things are happening. The smell of smoke hangs in the air. Sparks fly when Carter John gets in trouble. And he hears the voice of a young girl singing a song . . . a song about burning . . .
When fires start breaking out around town, Carter John and Gianna are determined to figure out who’s responsible. They are certain that these are no normal fires . . . Something terrible once happened where the town library now stands, and someone’s trying to send them a message about it.
But who is she―and why is she determined to get revenge?
From the author of The Forgotten Girl and The Girl in the Lake, this is both a bonechilling ghost story, and a book about the history of segregated libraries.
- PRE-ORDER: Season of the Serpent (The Nameless Republic, 3)
PRE-ORDER: Season of the Serpent (The Nameless Republic, 3)
$19.99Award-winning author Suyi Davies Okungbowa returns in the final installment of the Nameless Republic trilogy with a tale of villains, allies, and a world on the brink of destruction, perfect for fans of Tasha Suri, Evan Winter, and James Islington.
The old world has fallen. Now is the time of serpents.
The continent is split. The islands have sunk. The empire of Bassa is no more. With the resistant Nameless Republic and the conquering Kangalaland on the brink of war, all must choose a side: ally, or fall. Oon’s heroes and villains must rise from their ashes and meet a Third Great War.Peace won’t come easy. Long-lost family will fight to reach Danso before war erases him forever. Lilong has survived the island catastrophe but lost her power, and will do anything to get it back. And fate will find Esheme where it left her—will the dead queen rise again?
For Oon, the first season of the five states is a season of serpents. After the storms pass and winds blow, what will remain? And who will survive?
Praise for The Nameless Republic:
"A thrilling, fantastical adventure that introduces a beguiling new world . . . and then rips apart everything you think you know."—S. A. Chakraborty
"An original and fascinating epic fantasy full of bold characters, bloody action, and brutal politics.”―James Islington
The Nameless Republic
Son of the Storm
Warrior of the Wind
Season of the Serpent - PRE-ORDER: Wild Seed (Patternist, 1)
PRE-ORDER: Wild Seed (Patternist, 1)
$19.99A gorgeous new edition of Book 1 of the Patternist series, in which two immortals chase each other across continents and centuries, binding their fates together -- and changing the destiny of the human race.
This deluxe edition includes:
* A new cover and package
* Premium French flaps and newly designed, full-color interior covers
* High-quality paper with elegant deckled-edgesDoro knows no higher authority than himself. An ancient spirit with boundless powers, he possesses humans, killing without remorse as he jumps from body to body to sustain his own life. With a lonely eternity ahead of him, Doro breeds supernaturally gifted humans into empires that obey his every desire. He fears no one—until he meets Anyanwu.
Anyanwu is an entity like Doro and yet different. She can heal with a bite and transform her own body, mending injuries and reversing aging. She uses her powers to cure her neighbors and birth entire tribes, surrounding herself with kindred who both fear and respect her. No one poses a true threat to Anyanwu—until she meets Doro.
The moment Doro meets Anyanwu, he covets her; and from the villages of 17th-century Nigeria to 19th-century United States, their courtship becomes a power struggle that echoes through generations, irrevocably changing what it means to be human.
- PRE-ORDER: Colorism: The Politics of Skin Tone and How We Get Free
PRE-ORDER: Colorism: The Politics of Skin Tone and How We Get Free
$18.99The essential primer on colorism, and how each of us has a role in dismantling skin tone bias.
Racism is easy to spot these days; we know its script, its favorite media tropes, its legislative tactics, and how it makes us feel. But there is another societal ill hiding in racism’s shadow: colorism. Colorism is a social hierarchy that favors people with lighter skin tones and stigmatizes people with darker skin tones. More than a debate on social media about who’s most attractive, colorism frays the fabric of our homes and communities and jeopardizes the lives and livelihoods of individuals most impacted. Dr. Sarah L. Webb’s Colorism arrives as a fresh perspective on how we move toward a world free from harmful stigma and discord—a more liberated, more loving world.
In Colorism, Dr. Sarah shows us how colorism goes unrecognized by most even as it contours our every day lives. She leads us through cultural myths, client testimonies and her own personal stories to demonstrate colorism’s global stronghold on communities of color and white communities alike. She dissects how dating and pop culture can be hotbeds of discrimination. And she lifts the veil on how colorism can determine our access to education, work, social services, and politics. Soulfully told and richly informational, Colorism rounds out with revisions we can all make to show up for one another. After all, bias may be based on what’s on the outside, but true healing starts from within. - PRE-ORDER: We Were Here: A History of Black People and Alternative Music
PRE-ORDER: We Were Here: A History of Black People and Alternative Music
$30.00A long-overdue corrective to the history of rock ‘n’ roll and alternative music, repopulating it with the extraordinary Black artists and influential figures who steered its course, from an author, journalist, and front woman of the British post punk band Big Joanie.
The history of rock and roll and alternative music is often told in bold, sweeping, isolated moments that are removed from the context of their time. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that the stories we tell center primarily on the achievements of white men like Elvis Presley, The Ramones, Nirvana, and David Bowie. White men who were the stars, white men who supposedly changed the game, white men who seemingly were at the forefront of every musical innovation in the 20th and 21st centuries. These rock and roll retellings perpetuate the belief that white men were the most important people to wield a guitar, strut on stage, or pound out a pummeling drumbeat. What is missing in these stories is everything in between—the people, the places, and the scenes that connect the dots—and you can’t tell the history of any music scene, let alone alternative music, without the Black community.
From the genre's earliest moments, Black musicians—like gospel entertainer Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1930s-40s and rock and roll legend Chuck Berry in the 1950s—have consistently pushed musical boundaries that forever impacted the music that followed. Throughout the decades, numerous Black entertainers continued to add their take on rock and alternative genres, expanding and building on what was already there to create what we know as alternative music today: look no further than the electric fire of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar licks in the '60s, the kaleidoscopic melee of hardcore and reggae that was Bad Brains in the late '70s, and the funkadelic swagger of Living Colour in the '80s.
Despite their groundbreaking contributions, why have Black musicians been so neglected from the historical canon? Is alternative music still seen as a white genre, and how are Black musicians and fans making space for themselves in the music scenes they love? We Were Here tells the story of Black artists performing in alternative genres from punk to rock and roll, indie to new wave, alongside their Black fans. Through brand new interviews and meticulous research, Phillips documents the history of Black people’s influence on these genres, highlighting the key players, assessing the legacy of their work, and drawing attention to those who have been obscured from history.
Where rock magazines and music books previously omitted or misunderstood the stories of Black artists and fans, this book centers their voices and attempts to right the wrongs of the past. Along the way, Phillips infuses her own coming-of-age story as a Black female musician in the punk scene, alongside a cultural analysis of rock and alternative music history.
- PRE-ORDER: The Wound Is Where the Light Enters: A Memoir of Resilience
PRE-ORDER: The Wound Is Where the Light Enters: A Memoir of Resilience
$29.00The inspiring memoir of a brilliant young man who, sentenced to life in prison, refused to surrender his future—a story so powerful that it transformed even the judge who handed down the sentence.
If our world were more just, Chris Young would have been crossing a stage at college graduation at the age of 22. Instead, he was marched into a maximum-security federal prison, facing life under mandatory drug sentencing laws. Like far too many young Black men from his neighborhood in Clarksville, Tennessee, this was where his story was supposed to end.
But one day in the prison library, a book caught his eye: an encyclopedia. As he began to turn the pages, Chris felt himself transported. Knowledge became a portal. He began to confront the nihilism around him, the trauma of his past, and the cruelty of a system determined to confine him. From the library, his cell, and even solitary confinement, Chris built an education from scratch, studying philosophy, art, anthropology, history, physics, and politics. He learned to analyze the stock market and taught himself how to code without a computer. He trained his mind—and refused to let prison dictate the limits of his imagination. At his sentencing hearing, Chris gave such a moving speech that the judge resigned from his lifetime appointment to the bench and fought to free him.
Started in solitary confinement and finished beyond bars, The Wound Is Where the Light Enters is a powerful meditation on choice, consequence, and human potential, told through the story of a man who was never given a chance—and who fought until, at last, he was. - PRE-ORDER: Where Do You Feel That in Your Body?: Moving Beyond Talk Therapy to Understand the Language of the Nervous System
PRE-ORDER: Where Do You Feel That in Your Body?: Moving Beyond Talk Therapy to Understand the Language of the Nervous System
$30.00For fans of The Body Keeps Score and How to Do the Work, trauma therapist Simone Saunders bridges the gap where talk therapy falls short—showing you how to move beyond self-awareness and reconnect with the sensations, signals and emotions your body has been shaped by, breaking cycles of emotional disconnection once and for all.
Many of us assume that once we understand why we feel the way we do, things will finally change. Traditional talk therapy often equips us with the language and self-awareness we’ve been missing — yet so many of us find ourselves stuck. We can recognize the trigger, name the pattern, and explain the story, yet still feel unable to create tangible change in our day-to-day lives. So, where’s the disconnect? What’s missing?
Registered social worker and trauma therapist Simone Saunders believes the answer lies in crossing the threshold from the mind into the body—moving from self-awareness into a felt, embodied understanding. In Where Do You Feel That in Your Body, Simone guides you through a gentle and practical approach to noticing what emotions feel like in your body, understanding the protective patterns shaped by identity and past experiences, and recognizing how your nervous system responds to stress and disconnection. You’ll learn how to read your body’s signals with curiosity, and how to build the capacity to stay present with your emotions instead of disconnecting from them.
In recent years, the language of the body—posture, facial expressions, movements, and sensations—has become more widely recognized for the integral role it plays in shaping and maintaining our survival patterns. Where Do You Feel That in Your Body shows you how to build a steady, supportive relationship with your nervous system that grows and shifts over time. You’ll understand how your body and mind communicate, how identity and culture shape your emotional responses, and how to gently shift the patterns that once helped you survive.
- PRE-ORDER: Blue Beach
PRE-ORDER: Blue Beach
$19.99Perfect for fans of Promise Boys, this gripping historical mystery follows a teenager who finds a murdered girl on her family's California beach—a discovery that will reveal the racism rampant in her world.
Fifteen-year-old Blue Collins’s parents own the only Black beach in Santa Monica in 1929. She loves spending time there with her handsome friend Ben Clark. It’s a quiet spot where they can be alone and where Ben’s darker skin won’t be judged by onlookers—or Blue’s own family.
During a sunset rendezvous after a summer parade, the pair discovers the body of Dottie Whitehouse, a white debutante. Blue Beach is already threatened by local white property owners. Now their whole community could be at risk. In their panic, Blue and Ben move Dottie’s body into the waters of a nearby white beach.
Dottie’s body washes ashore, and it isn’t long before all eyes are on Ben. Everyone saw how Dottie teased him and how they shared smiles. And their history goes deeper than Blue ever realized. But to save Ben from the outraged white townspeople, she’ll need to do whatever she can to dig up the truth and prove his innocence. Ben isn’t the only one whose life depends on it.
- PRE-ORDER: Mind of My Mind (Patternist, 2)
PRE-ORDER: Mind of My Mind (Patternist, 2)
$19.99A gorgeous new edition of Book 2 of the Patternist series, in which two immortals chase each other across continents and centuries, binding their fates together -- and changing the destiny of the human race.
This deluxe edition includes:
* A new cover and package
* Premium French flaps and newly designed, full-color interior covers
* High-quality paper with elegant deckled-edges
“Vivid ... explosive.” —Publishers WeeklyMary is a treacherous experiment. Her creator, an immortal named Doro, has molded the human race for generations, seeking out those with unusual talents like telepathy and breeding them into a new subrace of humans who obey his every command. Mary is the result: a young Black woman living on the rough outskirts of Los Angeles in the 1970s, who has no idea how much power she will soon wield.
Doro knows he must handle Mary carefully or risk her ending like his previous experiments: dead, either by her own hand or Doro's. What he doesn't suspect is that Mary's maturing telepathic abilities may soon rival his own power.
By linking telepaths with a viral pattern, she will create the potential to break free of his grip once and for all—and shift the course of humanity.
- PRE-ORDER: Who Got Game? Football
PRE-ORDER: Who Got Game? Football
$16.99Welcome to the the Super Bowl of sports history books, the G.O.A.T. of the storytelling shelf, the most entertaining football book you'll ever read, from New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Honor winner Derrick D. Barnes.
Football rules America. It’s the favorite child (like you), it’s the teacher’s pet, it’s the grandkid that Granny bakes all of the cakes, cookies, and pies for. But while you might know all the latest, do you know the GREATEST? The players, coaches, change agents, and all-out legends who made the National Football League what it is today? We're talking about Tom Brady—the sixth-round quarterback, passed up by every team in the league, who ended up becoming the G.O.A.T. Joe Horn, who hid a cell phone in the goalpost and used it after he scored a touchdown—because he was that confident he could get to the end zone. Jim Thorpe, Peyton Manning, Orlando Jones, Mel Blount They're all here for you to discover.
If you consider yourself a football fan, get ready for the names, games, stats, records, and far-out facts that you couldn’t possibly get anywhere else. Have you ever heard of Fritz Pollard or Anthony Muñoz? Did you know that one of the greatest defensive backs of all time is part of the reason the passing game expanded in the NFL? And can you believe that the biggest comeback in NFL history was led by a backup quarterback? By the time you’re finished with this book, you’ll have an advanced degree in football facts. So get ready to flip through the pages, take meticulous notes, and highlight those amazing stories and hard-to-believe facts that will make your buddies crown you a football genius ... because you are. Game time, baby!
- PRE-ORDER: Sex in Public: The Transformative Social Power of Our Erotic Lives
PRE-ORDER: Sex in Public: The Transformative Social Power of Our Erotic Lives
$30.00A prize-winning sociologist’s radical vision of the social power of erotic life.
“Fearless, candid, and bold, Sex in Public is necessary reading for anyone interested in imagining a different kind of world, one that approaches eroticism and freedom as fundamentally linked.” —Jennifer C. Nash, author of Black Feminism Reimagined
Whether we are contending with shame, healing from trauma, or experimenting in the bedroom, there is a common tendency to cast anything sexual as a problem best solved in private. Fears of judgment fuel an air of oppression around something that should be liberating. According to feminist sociologist Angela Jones, we must reject this solitary vision of desire to claim the pleasure fundamental to our freedom.
Sex in Public offers a revolutionary new paradigm for understanding sexuality. Sex is never strictly personal, but relentlessly social, shaped by power relations, and possessing outsized power of its own. To make this case, Jones charts the inner and interrelated workings of our desires, behaviors, identities, relationships, and communities.
Guiding readers through field-leading sociology, sexual science, and the voices of sexual rule-breakers worldwide, Jones pinpoints the repressive forces that distort eroticism’s power, but also reveals our means of breaking free. Championing a rebellious spirit that uplifts bodily autonomy, justice, and care, Sex in Public makes a tantalizing promise: better sex lives and empowerment await, if only we dare to know our sexualities fully, reimagining society as we do.
- False Starts (A Nansi Graphic Novel, 2)
False Starts (A Nansi Graphic Novel, 2)
$16.99Friendship drama and actual theater drama abound in this hilarious and heartfelt middle-school story.
It’s the summer before eighth grade, and best friends Nansi, Ayesha and Angela are spending as much of the summer together as they can, and celebrating the news that Ayesha got the lead role in the festival play. But when Nansi and Angela accidently post an embarrassing video of Ayesha to a group chat, it sets off a series of events that threaten Nansi and Ayesha’s friendship. And it looks like Nansi’s track-and-field archnemesis, Tania, is at the center of it all …
Packed with humor and hijinks, this second book in the Nansi graphic novel series by Carl Brundtland and Claudia Dávila hits all the right notes. The relatable characters, problems and situations - stage fright, sports rivalries, misunderstandings among friends (and adversaries) - make it a pitch-perfect middle-school read. Nansi’s character is loosely based on Anansi, the West African folktale trickster, adapted to inhabit a modern, urban North American setting. The series features a multicultural cast of characters and incorporates elements of Jamaican culture into Nansi’s family life. Colorful and expressive art by Claudia Dávila captures the energy and emotional range of the lovable characters. This book offers excellent character education lessons on caring, courage and resilience.
- PRE-ORDER: Clay's Ark (Patternist, 3)
PRE-ORDER: Clay's Ark (Patternist, 3)
$19.99A gorgeous new edition of Book 3 of the Patternist series, in which two immortals chase each other across continents and centuries, binding their fates together -- and changing the destiny of the human race.
This gorgeous, new deluxe edition includes:
* A new cover and package
* Premium French flaps and newly designed, full-color interior covers
* High-quality paper with elegant deckled-edgesBlake Maslin is traveling with his teenage twin daughters through an alternate America marked by volatile class warfare when their car is ambushed. Their attackers appear sickly yet possess inhuman strength, and they transport Blake's family to an isolated compound. There, the three captives discover that the compound's residents have a highly contagious alien disease that has mutated their DNA to make them powerful, dangerous, and compelled to infect others.
If Blake and his daughters do not escape, they will be infected with a virus that will either kill them outright or transform them into outcasts whose very existence is a threat to the world around them.
In the following hours, Blake and his daughters must make a vital choice: risk everything to escape and warn the rest of the world, or accept their new reality—as well as the uncertain fate of the human race.
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